“Every single one of us is good at something. Some of us just give up on what that is before we even discover it. “

=

William Chapman

—- “I told her once i wasn’t good at anything.

She told me survival is a talent. You never need to apologize for how you chose to survive.”

=

Clementine von Radics

—

“To paraphrase someone smarter than me, who still knows nothing, the philosophical task of our age is for each of us to decide what it means to be a successful human being.

I don’t know the answer to that, but I would like to find out.”

=

Ottmer <the futurist>

—

Well. Let me begin by saying, well, being better is better.

Or better said: better is good.

In addition. Being good at something is good.

Those are two basic Life thoughts. Simple thoughts, but kind of important thoughts. Important because they are pervasive throughout civilization, culture, attitudes and certainly drives behavior.

Now. The most basic aspect of this whole thing of people wanting to be really good at something and, I imagine why people want to be passionate about something, is that they have experience with lack of passion. I say that last thought because <here is a Life truth> the reason why we’re not passionate about stuff we’re not really good at is because we aren’t <cannot be> passionate about stuff we suck at.

Here is where it gets a little screwy. Being good at something is a minefield mentally.

Huh? What do you mean <you ask me>??

How many times have you heard some version of the following phrases?

• “Everyone has a special skill!“

• “You just need to practice!“

• “You haven’t tried everything yet!“

• “You better work out what special skill you have and then use it for the rest of your life because if you don’t you’ll live in a dumpster fighting with cats for food!“

That trite advice is fine for people who are good at things, but what if you just suck at everything?

<or at least have sucked at everything you have tried to date>

Well. Here is the good news. It is next to impossible to suck at everything. It is much more likely that “… some of us just give up on what that is before we even discover it.”

As a corollary, in reality, it’s impossible to be good at every single thing you try.

Oh. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you suck. It’s all about perspective and how you define whether you’re good at something. For instance, are you basing how bad you are at something on your own standards or are you comparing yourself to others? If it’s the latter then you need to stop and remind yourself that we are all individuals. You’re not inferior or inept, you’re just different <kind of like snowflakes … okay … maybe not>.

Suffice it to say that insecurities and doubts limit your potential <regardless of whether you suck or are actually good> so if you intend to succeed at something you must first get rid of them.

Ah. But here is the curve ball Life throws at you <or is it a screwball??> — while you are figuring out what you are good at a whole shit load of incompetent assholes around you are trying to convince everyone what they are good at <of which they are actually not good at what they think they are>.

Incompetent people don’t know they are incompetent <in other words … they don’t think they suck>.

——

When asked, most individuals will describe themselves as better-than-average in areas such as leadership, social skills, written expression, or just about anything where the individual has an interest.

This tendency of the average person to believe he or she is better-than-average is known as the “above-average effect,” and it flies in the face of logic … by definition, descriptive statistics says that it is impossible absurdly improbable for a majority of people to be above average.

It follows, therefore, that a large number of the self-described “above average” individuals are in fact below average in those areas, and they are simply unaware of their incompetence.

——-

It seems that the reason for this phenomenon is obvious:

– The more incompetent someone is in a particular area, the less qualified that person is to assess anyone’s skill in that space, including their own.

– When one fails to recognize that he or she has performed poorly, the individual is left assuming that they have performed well.

Anyway. What this means is that the incompetent tend to grossly overestimate their skills and abilities.

—

“He felt he was himself and did not want to be otherwise. He only wanted to be better than he had been before. “

Leo Tolstoy

—

The Department of Psychology at Cornell University made an effort to determine just how profoundly one mistakenly overestimates one’s own skills in relation to one’s actual abilities.

They made the following predictions before the studies:

– Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria.

– Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacognitive skills, in that they will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize competence when they see it–be it their own or anyone else’s.

– Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to gain insight into their true level of performance by means of social comparison information. In particular, because of their difficulty recognizing competence in others, incompetent individuals will be unable to use information about the choices and performances of others to form more accurate impressions of their own ability.

Rather than showcase the study and the results let me just say … they were correct in their assumptions.

Look. While I have spent a lot of time talking about incompetence and the incompetent, there is nothing more beautiful than watching competence in action. Especially if they are just good, not great, and have the awareness to build on their good in pursuit of … well … not great … but something better.

—-

“No one is good at everything, but everyone is good at something.”

any after school 1990’s special

—-

“Sucking is the first step to being sorta good at something”

Thorin Klosowski

—

And maybe that is why competence <or being good> is so beautiful to watch … it is the pursuit.

The pursuit? Being good at something mostly means you weren’t as good, or even sucked, at some point. This means the true competent people keep pushing.

Being good at something means no dumb questions, no dumb answers and no low <or stagnant> standards. And that is where I believe the whole concept of ‘being good at something’ should be grounded.

It’s not passion.

And, frankly, it may not even be something that comes easily to you.

It is more about holding yourself to some higher standard.

It is about the desire to keep pushing.

It is about being responsible for not quitting.

—-

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you, never excuse yourself.”

Henry Ward Beecher

—–

In the end. Set aside ‘higher standards’ or ‘accepting you are good at something’ … in the end I respect … well … caring.

Giving a shit.

Or maybe call it … ‘nerdy as fuck about something.’

—-

“I respect people who get nerdy as fuck about something they love.”

Leah Raeder

——-

Caring enough about what you do is a good thing … and it makes you good at something.

It’s not passion.

It’s maybe not any real ability.

It’s just about the fact that you care.

By the way. Getting back to the first quote I used.

This also suggests, on those tough days and tough stretches in Life, simple survival is a talent because it means you care about Life.

Uhm. And that is a good thing to be good at.

Care about Life and never, never, apologize for how you choose to survive.

“Maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.”

Jodi Picoult

———-

“After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents – a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.”

Rohinton Mistry

———-

So, I tend to believe we measure ourselves by what we expect of ourselves when … well … we have expectations of ourselves.

But.

If this big ‘calamity we call Life’ is simply a sequence of accidents … a chain of chance events … maybe we should be measuring ourselves by what we are capable of when we least expect it.

I feel confident suggesting this because most of us are capable of a shitload.

Yet. Most of us give ourselves a shitload of criticism for not meeting expectations when we expect to do something.

Yet. Most of life is a shitload of unexpected things.

It would be nice if Life acted upon the same principle as the programming technology industry: the principle of least astonishment. In other words, if some key technology feature has a high astonishment factor <the surprise factor> they immediately conclude it may be necessary to redesign the feature. The design should match the user’s experience, expectations, and mental models <in other words … surprises are bad>.

Well. Unfortunately Life doesn’t work that way.

And neither do we. Life astonishes us on a fairly consistent basis and we astonish ourselves on a far equal amount of the time.
Least expected typically refers to something that is the least likely <or most unlikely> to happen. And yet what we do, what we are capable of, in these least expected moments are actually the least unexpected. Because least unexpected refers to something that is the least unlikely <or most likely> to happen and, yet, it is incredibly likely we are more than capable.

In our heads, and often in our words, unlikely or unexpected get jumbled up with least likely and least expected and in all the jumbledness the result ends up as, well, actually the least unexpected.

<don’t worry … my head started getting confused & hurting when I wrote that>

I would suggest that what we are capable of when we least expect it is typically pretty frickin’ amazing.

In the unplanned calamity of Life we make choices … and in a least unexpected way we do pretty fucking well. Remember this:

———

“Adventures do occur, but not punctually.”

E.M. Forster

———

Life is not punctual. Nor is Life planned ahead of time.

Life is often one big calamity. The only thing we can expect of Life is the unexpected.

The least unexpected thing? What we are capable of. Who we are is not just defined by what we do <in general>, but rather what we do in the unexpected calamity of Life. The choices we make in the unexpected chain of moments that make up most of Life. To paraphrase Chekov:

Any idiot can ‘do’ in the expected moments.

The measure of a person is truly found in what you do in the unexpected moments.

Ok. Here is a Life truth. I am fairly sure everyone is this … or some version, in degrees, of this ‘remading’ thing.

That creates some problems because, at its core, this one Life’s contradictions. Staying the course with regard to your core and yet changing yourself as you learn & experience. Its kind of like a personal version of ‘optimal newness.’

I envision this is all about ‘the more you learn the more you change’.

Maybe more interesting <maybe>… it isn’t about quantity of learning but rather the thought that each individual thing you learn actually changes your … either subconsciously or consciously.

Well. This suggests nudging rather than radical change.

Regardless. I find we sometimes hold on to things more so when the encouraged change is conscious <there is more internal mental debate> but, inevitability, if you are learning shit … you will change shit:

—

Change your thoughts.

=

Change your attitude.

=

Change your behavior.

=

Even change your appearance.

—

Sometimes when I have this discussion with people they think this whole ‘constantly be remade’ thought is … well … unreasonable.

Unreasonable? Yup. They think it is a little unreasonable because while, philosophically, we all agree that change is good … practically speaking … we tend to balk at it. And we tend to balk even more if we suggest changing again and again. And we tend to balk even more if we suggest all that changing occurs with us.

As soon as remading becomes personal this becomes a ‘but’ obstacle management. Yeah. I tend to think of our forward movement, or change movement, being inhibited by what I call the “but signs” society & the people around us throw up as they watch us ‘remake’ <which are actually huge stop signs>:

=

“But you have changed.”

–

“But you said this.”

–

“But you used to do this.”

=

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm … lots of ‘buts.’ Life and people push back on you as you push forward with personal change.

Something has to give.

You gotta push back.

Remaking yourself … again and again … may sound unreasonable, if not slightly disingenuous, to others.

Well. Tough shit.

——–

“You won’t find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains.”

Hunter S. Thompson

——–

Remade people tend to stand on tall mountains. The mountain may not be success <which is what I fear many people associate tall mountains with these days> … it may simply be the ability to stand tall.

To be clear. Not actually taller than anyone else. Just tall.

As I think about this it is almost odd to suggest some inconsistency, the thought that ‘different people draw different words from me’, would actually create a stronger solid personal core but I reconcile that thought with the understanding we all would feel pretty good about ourselves if we can stand tall.

And if being remade again and again helps us do so then maybe some inconsistency is good. It may be more difficult for people around us but better for us.

“The world is not as simple as we like to make it out to be. The outlines are often vague and it’s the details that count.

Nothing is really truly black or white and bad can be a disguise for good or beauty … and vice versa without one necessarily excluding the other.

Someone can both love and betray the object of its love … without diminishing the reality of the true feelings and value.

Life is an uncertain adventure in a diffuse landscape whose borders are constantly shifting where all frontiers are artificial where at any moment everything can either end only to begin again … or finish suddenly forever … like an unexpected blow from an axe.

Where the only absolute, coherent, indisputable and definitive reality … is death. We have such little time when you look at Life … a tiny lightning flash between two eternal nights.

Everything has to do with everything else.

Life is a succession of events that link with each other whether we want them to or not.”

—–

Arturo Perez Revarte

==============

Vague sucks.

And, yet, I would argue the majority of people only really have some vague outline of how the world works, or how effective or ineffective a leader is, or even only have a vague outline of any specific relationship between cause & affect.

This vaguery exists because it takes a lot of work to parse the details, and the appropriate details, and the ‘right’ details to make the outlines less vague and more tangible.

Is this work valuable ? Sure.

Is this work necessary to increase some certainty in Life? Sure.

Do most people do this work? No. The majority of people have shit to do <other than this type of work>. That is neither good nor bad … it just is what it is. A lot of pseudo intellectuals and smartish pundits bitch & moan and gnash their teeth over this, but they would lead a significantly less stressful life if they just accepted it.

What this means is that in this ‘vague outline’ people inevitably create a vague/semi solid outline belief. From there they look around on occasion and question that outline. The questions raised either support the vague outline or raise doubts and … well … more questions. All the while this is happening more information barrages the vague outline. In this barrage is a confusing mix of real, fake and quasi truths. All these confusing things do in the people’s minds is, contrary to belief, not confuse but rather make the person more dismissive of the incoming confusion and steadier in whatever vague outline they may have constructed.

Once again.

This is neither good nor bad … it just is what it is. A lot of pseudo intellectuals and smartish pundits bitch & moan and gnash their teeth over this but they would lead a significantly less stressful life if they just accepted it.

Ah.

I will say that at some point the ‘questions I have about my vague outline’gain some gravitas. This can happen several ways, but let me point out two:

The questions themselves coalesce into some easy to understand ‘blob’ from which people who have a vague outline decide … my vague outline is wrong <or sucks>. Let’s say that this is the point at which the doubts and questions begin to outweigh the beliefs that created the vague outline.

Someone weaves a narrative using the doubts & questions into a relatively succinct, believable and non-hyperbolic driven framing of an outline which people look at, scratch their heads, go “hmmmmmmmmm …” and decide this new vague outline will replace the one they had in place. Oh. To be clear. This narrative must not only use the doubts & questions to dissolve the current vague outline but must also offer an alternative vague outline <outlines need to be replaced not simply destroyed>.

The first never happens fast enough to people who just cannot understand how and why some people have decided to live with some vague outline <that just seems ‘not really a smart outline’ to them>.

The second is not as easy as it appears. It isn’t as easy because problems are rarely as clear as we would like them to be and a narrative never lives without the context of all the barrage of real, fake and quasi truths impacting and denting and solidifying a vague outline that already exists. Or someone weaves a great narrative to destroy but forgets to offer an alternative.

In other words … everything has to do with everything else.

I imagine I have two points today.

First.

We humans have come to accept a certain amount of uncertainty with regard to our lives and our decisions. This uncertainty is also built into the vague outlines we tend to construct for ourselves. What this means is that the construct of our beliefs and thoughts and ideas may be certain to us and, yet, its silhouette accommodates some uncertainty.

I began today by unequivocally stating that vague sucks. And I believe 99% of people would agree that it sucks. But in today’s world the majority of people have enough shit to do that they slot their thinking thoughts time. in one slot they place unequivocal certainty type thoughts. In another slot they place the “I will always be uncertain about this shit and thank God there is someone else at some higher pay grade than I who can be certain about it.” and, lastly, we slot all the shit in which we have formed some vague outline which accommodates a certain degree of uncertainty.

My point here is we tend to make this a binary discussion where the reality lies in a more complex mix of vagueness & clarity, certainty & uncertainty.

Second.

Certainty, in and of itself, has degrees … it is not a simple black or white binary.

People can have vague outlines AND have questions with regard to their outlines and, yet, not want to ditch the outline. “How can you still believe that?” may be one of the most misguided and unenlightened questions that has ever existed. It completely misses the point in that it assumes ignorance, stupidity or some negative trait in order to hold on to some vague outline regardless of doubts.

A vague outline is a choice.

No more and no less.

We question choices all the time and, yet, remain with the original choice despite some fairly extensive doubts. I say this because that said … it is silly to point out doubts and questions as a reason to ditch a vague outline. My easiest example is President Trump. His followers have a vague outline of what they like and believe about him. We scrutinize them for doubts and questions and when they share them we immediately pounce and suggest “then how can you still believe in your vague outline!?!” <usually said with a slight overall disbelief & wonder>.

Within their lives of doing shit that is important to them they created a vague outline of who and what Trump is, or isn’t, and … well … uncertainty was built into their certainty. The moment they will begin to disbelieve their vague outline is when the uncertainty overpowers the certainty. Until then we should stop acting confused that someone believes what they believe.

Anyway.

I love the quote I opened with even though I hate vague. The truth is that we all live with some vague outlines albeit your vague outline may actually be one of my non-vague outlines, and vice versa. And when they are in conflict then … well … there is conflict.

All that said, while vague sucks there is a reason we do it and this reason is not stupid, nor unenlightened nor ignorant.

It is just damn practical to have some vague outlines.

Life is an uncertain adventure in a diffuse landscape whose borders are constantly shifting.

Life is restless.

Our vague outlines are necessary to accommodate some of its restlessness. Not recognizing that is either naive or foolish. I would also point out that if you are frustrated by someone’s vague outlines, the onus is upon you to bold the outline on whatever issue you want them to see so that, well, they can clearly see the outline of what really “is.” Just remember. There is a massive difference between vague and vague outlines.

Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home.”

—–

Patch Adams

====================

Well. I had all these quotes and I didn’t know what to do with them until I saw the image at the opening of this post: “They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving maybe I’m going home.”

I have often wondered why many of us are so restless. We seek things, and travel places looking for ‘something’ and dream dreams. This doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy what we have nor does it mean we don’t accept reality. It just means that there is always an undercurrent of change or “what ifs” or “what could be’s” underneath the surface of our Life. At the same time we are sailing through Life seeking some place we can land which we can not only call home, but actually feels like home.

And maybe that is where the line “home is where you hang your hat’ comes into play. In its simplicity it is actually suggesting that it really isn’t your hat that matters it is when you accept that you can be who you are and that ‘who’ is all you can be that you have found home. And while Thérèse was really suggesting that the material world was simply your journey and heaven, or God, is your destination the overall thought is truer than true.

Whether you believe in something bigger than you or simply believe there is something bigger within you, you should seek the stars within you to guide you to it all — not some external place or location which may appear to fulfill some aspect of ‘home.’

Your dreams, wishes and … yes … the starlight to guide you in the darkness of not knowing what to do, where to go and how to get thru whatever it is you are going thru … is all within you.

Your home resides within you.

You are simply looking for a place to … well … place your home that feels right and true. That place is unseen. That place is not really one place <it can actually be many places>.

Here comes the hard part.

Life will not give you any signposts and most of Life will constantly change your direction unseen in the undercurrents of Life.

============

“In the short voyage of a lifetime, we can see the eddies and ripples on the surface, but not the undercurrents changing the main channel of the stream. “

Thomas Mellon

=============

This all suggests you are in control and you are not in control.

Just ponder the fact we often stand upon the deck of our ship admiring the horizon and enjoying the travel & journey only to have some Life undercurrent disrupt our complacency and some version of ‘living Life laziness’ <i.e., if you’re not careful and become actively involved in Life, Life will actively involve itself in your Life>.

This simply reminds us that circumstances beyond our control often disrupt the illusion of what we have, who we are and where we are.

The unseen undercurrent constantly nudges our mind with questions:

What is our purpose?

How can we take control of so many things out of our control?

How do we reconcile the vastness Life offers us … reconcile the bigness that can often appear within reach … and reconcile our desire to be worthy of Life … reconcile it all against the smallness that is us in the roiling sea on which our ship sails?

Will we ever satisfy our dreams for what could be & what we could be?

Meaningful or meaningless?

We struggle with these questions. And all the while we avoid the questions under the guise of “seeking home.’

Ah. Shit.

Suffice it to say, home is not anything physical, it actually resides in the infinite. As a corollary, this would presume if you accept its infiniteness you should be able to see it also has the potential to be infinitely good.

I believe we inherently know this and inherently know that only ‘home’ will truly satisfy us. And that search, that journey, is the satisfaction. I imagine the unfortunate, uncomfortable, truth is the odds are we will never truly find some ‘home’ in which we can live our entire lives.

“Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and applause of the many, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.”

–

Longfellow

===============

Success in business is a trickier thing to talk about than you would expect.

In our ‘positive reinforcement world’ in which ‘everyone contributes and should be included’ we give out more gold stars in the business world than a second grade class. I sometimes think we give out so many rewards that no one can truly tell who the ‘best contributors’ <the ones who we used to call our ‘A players’> are.

In this, business is different than sports. Over an entire season your best players in sports become obvious to everyone. In business it is less obvious. It becomes even less obvious when everyone is getting bonuses and rewards. And it can be even less obvious to the employees themselves as even the A players get the rewards behind the scenes which makes the ‘somewhere less than A’ players start thinking … well … they are the success generators.

I sometimes wonder how we arrived at this commoditization of success in business.

Maybe it is an overreaction to a world where finding fault and seeking blame and uncovering less than perfection.

“We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers.

Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections.”

Henry B. Eyring

Maybe it is our slightly absurd infatuation with ‘everyone contributes’ and ‘all ideas are good & valuable.’

Yeah. Everyone does contribute in a business <or they get fired>. But not everyone contributes equally on all skills. That is why … uhm … we have departments and specialists and people who get hired to do accounting and sales. And, yes, everyone can contribute to success, but some have a larger impact than others. Does that make the ‘lesser impact people’ be less valuable?

Well, no, but their value generates less, or a different type, of an ROI.

But we don’t seem to want to point that out in an organization in our attempt to make everyone feel equally involved in the success. To be clear. If an organization is well run, everyone DOES contribute to success, but every organization has a hierarchy (even if it isn’t mapped out), just as ever team opts to a ‘captain’ even if one is not designated.

As for ideas?

Well, yes, everyone can come up with ideas and anyone can actually come up with a good and useful idea. But we certainly should not confuse that thought <truth> with the belief all ideas are good and that anyone can come up with the idea needed at some particular moment.

Generating ideas on demand is … well … valuable.

Generating ideas as an outcome of doing your job? … well … that is also valuable but of a different value.

Regardless. Managing success in business is tricky.

It is about balancing the truth that people play roles and offer different skills and some of those roles & skills offer different outcomes & values … to the other truth that organizations are like engines where when all the pieces & parts are working well and in tune the engine sings. But, once again, this doesn’t mean all parts & pieces are of equal value. Some sustain the possibility of horsepower and some actually create the horsepower.

Do you need both?

Sure. But maybe the biggest issue about all of this is the democratization of success in business. If you cannot highlight the successes framed relatively then … well … all successes become equal and therefore anyone believes they are as equally skilled & competent & valuable as everyone else.

That, my friends, is a problem in any organization of any significant size.

Do I believe in hierarchy? Well. Yes and no.

No if it is just layers to have layers & not if it doesn’t permit freedom to permit people to maximize what they have to offer.

Yes if it is because you have placed the appropriate skill in the appropriate position in order to maximize all the pieces & parts.

That said.

It seems to me that we would all be better off if we started thinking about the fact that success, and defeat, is not found in the applause or criticism, but rather resides in each and every employee.

It seems to me that if we encourage more of an individual responsibility & pride that the organization will succeed without having to invest a shitload of energy focusing on worrying about how to recognize success. And, yes, the business itself has a responsibility to foster this belief, attitude & behavior by culturally exhibiting this belief, attitude and behavior.

Far too often the senior management bitches about the lack of employee responsibility without looking in the mirror. And maybe it is in that last sentence which generally encapsulates the contradictory aspects impacting how we view success in business.

We desire everyone to win and feel part of the team and ,yet, the American obsession with competition is more often than not brought to Life in business in some type of individual reviews, rewards & responses.

We inherently understand that the pieces & parts are not all equal in skill and output/outcome and, while talking about ‘everybody wins’, we still create an environment to have ‘someone win’ … believing competition brings out the best in everyone.

Managing that contradiction … well … if you don’t manage it well than success of the overall business suffers.

We all know what makes a business successful, or great, is continual improvement … not an “if it aint broke don’t fix it” attitude. Many American companies such as Ford, Alcoa, Starbucks and Harley Davidson practice continual improvement and systems thinking with great success. Deming is the one who developed the business approach of Continual Quality Improvement. It fosters teamwork and overall organizational success versus encouraging organizational success through individual competition.

Frankly, the idea is complicated and tricky. And it goes against America’s natural business DNA and most companies resist embracing the concept fully instead embracing individual competition <under a smokescreen umbrella of ‘everybody wins’>.

In general managing success in business is tricky for a variety of reasons.

We are too fond of quick fixes.

We are too fond of believing competition is necessary to maximize individual behavior.

We are too fond of not wanting to imply someone is better than someone else at something publicly.

We are too fond of chasing organizational management ideas used successfully by someone else <which is often like putting a hexagon peg in a square hole>.

Anyway.

I am not suggesting this is easy. Success is business is tricky. But I talk with a lot of businesses and I will suggest that most businesses haven’t figured it out. Just as sharing authority and leadership without actually losing it is difficult … sharing success without losing the luster of success is also difficult.

Most businesses are trying but they are a work in progress. I do believe the moment “leaders” recognize that triumph & defeat resides within everyone & empower them to be triumphant, empower them to make some ‘defeat’ decisions (and psychologically make them feel safe in making some of those decisions, the more productive, and healthy, the business will be.

For the latter, well, just see the gobs of information and quotes online with regard to “if you aren’t moving forward you are standing still” … “don’t look back or you’ll miss what is in front of you” … “don’t look back you are not going that way” or some fortune cookie wisdom like that <as if no one knows that movement, and progress, is good>. I call this the ‘forward progress theory’ business <I have noted elsewhere Life, like chess, is about facing the entire board and obstacles & opportunities which lie all around you, not just in front of you, & you can move in a variety of directions with progress in mind>.

That said.

With regard to progress, the bravest thing you can do is to not look back. Why do I say ‘brave’? We make it really hard to not look back. Really hard. Day in and day out everything around you pounds on you for ‘what did you learn’ and how are you applying it and ‘if you don’t know learnings from the past how can you be sure that is the right thing to do?” <crap like that>.

Okay. Semi useful thinking crap like that. But what it really means is that anyone truly desiring to move forward, intent on progress, keeps getting dragged back time and again to the past. What, or who, is the main culprit of this almost unhealthy relationship with the past?

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to make the same mistakes.”

Christalmighty.“Doomed.”

No wonder people are afraid of some risk or hesitate to move forward keep looking backwards. Doom is never a particularly desirable objective if you care about your career <or anything for that matter>.

The ‘doomed’ aspect <which older business people toss around like confetti in meetings> means we are almost demanded to not only invest energy in the past but, in some cases, encouraged to hold on to past learning with ragged claws. That said … I will go back to the bravery aspect because I could argue the truest bravery, in this sense, resides in two places:

Not looking back once you have decided to move forward.

Not looking back when you purposefully stand still.

Yeah.

First.Move.There are actually times to just go. Go and do. I do not mean ‘go’ as solely leaning on instincts <I call this ‘decision faking by intuition‘>, because research tends to show instincts are less important than experience, but lean on your experience to guide you through the context of your progress. The truth is that the past cannot show you all the shit you need to know as you move forward. It only shows aspects of shit you should be aware of. And, worse, the past has nasty habit of not encouraging you to reflect on the context of all the aspects just the aspects themselves. Therefore history is truly only important in parts and not the whole.

This means you have to grab the scraps of what you need from the past and create a new whole in moving forward. That is where bravery steps up to the plate. More often than not you are creating a new whole … a slightly different version of what was. Yeah. That is different than the past <it s actually something new>. Yeah. Everyone is actually a creator, a discoverer albeit we don’t like to think about that. While this point is a generalization … if you know your shit … once you have decided to go … to move forward … don’t look back. Bravely face the new world ahead.

Yeah.

Second.Stand still. There are actually times to stop. Stand still. Even amidst activity. Even amidst a crowd which seems like it is moving forward <albeit sometimes all you see is the movement>.

Stillness, strategic stillness, is possibly one of the scariest things anyone can ever do. When everyone and everything is moving you feel like you are ding something wrong in standing still. And, yet, by purposefully doing so you may be adding to the progress rather than taking away from it.

Here is what I know about purposefully standing still.

You have to accept the fact you are offering the type of energy that no matter where you are and no matter that you are still & not moving you are actually adding value to the space and time and progress to that which is around you. I can promise you that this takes a version of bravery.

Anyway.

The entire ‘Forward progress Theory’ is difficult. Difficult in the mind <attitudes> and even in practice <behavior>. I could argue that it is so difficult because our natural instinct is to try and use the past to define what the future will look like. That is slightly crazy when you think about it. While the arc of time suggests the future will most likely replicate the past, well, that is the arc and not the details. It’s kind of like discussing strategy versus tactics. The strategy may remain the same or similar, but the tactics will vary in the context of time & situation.

Progress does take some bravery, some courage. Mostly because the future will always contain something you have never seen before or faced before. In other words … it will not be the same as it was.

I don’t think I am particularly brave but I certainly don’t look back once I decide to go … and I have no qualms with standing still amidst movement. I tend to believe it is not bravery but rather experience.

Ah. Experience. Maybe you need to be brave to gain useful experience?

Ok.

That’s another post for another day ……..

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“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what’.

“Each one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches; each one of us should make a surveyor’s map of his lost fields and meadows.

Thoreau said that he had a map of his fields engraved in his soul. And Jean Wahl once wrote … [“] The frothing of the hedges / I keep deep inside me [“] … Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived.”

—

Gaston Bachelard

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“You have to live a life to understand it. Tourists just pass through.”

—

Prince

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Well. This is about Experiences and how each experience we have creates an imprint. In other words. Why experiencing things & experiences are important.

Let me give you a reason not only for living, but experiencing Life. And I don’t means “savoring Life” type trite bullshit. I mean experiencing what is going on around you and being aware, to participate in Life … and actually experience the realities of the here & now <and not divert your attention toward some imaginative “boy, I imagined something completely different than what is occurring”>. Nor am I going to hijack any of that nutjob Eckhardt Tolle’s “live in the now” nonsense.

All I will suggest is that each experience, especially when you pay some attention to it, etches something in us.

Think of it like acquiring a tattoo. If you do accept the tattoo metaphor <or is that an analogy?> it seems to me you should take some care with what gets engraved upon you.

Why care?

The fact is Life is in constant movement and it can become incredibly tiring trying to dance with it all day long. In addition, your dance partner, named either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, typically arrives without invitation. I would suggest more of us would be slightly more content if we didn’t focus on the fact our dance partner made us smile <lets assume that is “good”> or is a complete asshole <lets call that dance partner “bad”>, but instead focus on the dance itself.

That, my friends, is experiencing Life.

The steps, the movement, that path and arc of the dance and the fields upon which our feet are placed in their movement. Thoreau tells us ‘ he had the map of his fields engraved in his soul.’ That is because he not only walked them, but he saw and felt the steps as he placed them.

This is all about recognizing the value of being aware. And it is this perceptive appreciation of the time & place, past & present, permits us a healthy balance of reality and memory.

Even better?

This awareness actually permits us to embed the moments better in our heads. This isn’t to say we will remember it correctly <because psychologically we suck at correctly & accurately remembering things> but rather the moments themselves are engraved upon us.

To be clear. This ‘thing’ we embed is actually a reflection of the natural gap in our minds between the complexity of reality and our ability to experience the complexity. What I mean by that is we tend to view reality heuristically. Therefore we don’t truly see reality but rather a simplified translation. Unfortunately, this simplified version naturally builds in some blind spots.

Now. There is a whole bunch of psychological mumbo jumbo about ‘dimensions of recognition’ and ‘symbolic complementariness of the person’s first-hand life events/involvements’, but it is much easier for everyday schmucks like you and I to think of it in a linear fashion — any initial connective personal involvement in a moment begets some reflection <how it may relate to other moments> which inevitably creates some ongoing narrative in our head.

Aw. Forget all the psychological stuff. Simplistically, the map of our Life is engraved upon our minds (if not our soul) assuming we actually are aware enough to experience the map as we traverse it. That is why awareness matters — our universe deserves to be covered with our drawings.

I am fairly sure a lot of people will read this and be shaking their heads going “I have great memories … I could cover my universe with drawings, you aren’t telling me anything of value”.

And you may be right. Absolutely. You may be.

But I would suggest that most people would actually end up papering their universe with someone else’s drawings of their experience … like taping postcards on the wall of everywhere you have been. That is not covering your universe with drawings of what you have lived.

Those are simply superficial surface expressions of real actual experience.

Let me go back to my tattoo metaphor.

If I were to get a tattoo on my soul I imagine, at least me, I would not choose a tattoo of a postcard, but rather I would prefer choosing an expression of what I felt when I placed my feet where that postcard was. In other words, I don’t want my tattoo to be a tourist with Life, I want it to be an expression of how I lived it.

… a longing for something so indefinite as to be indefinable. Love affairs, miseries of life, the way things were, people already dead, those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land – all things born of the soul that can only be felt.

==

Anthony De Sa

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“He marveled at the indifference of the world, the way it kept on, despite everything.”

==

Anthony Doerr

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Ok. I am fairly sure everyone desires the greater intangible things in life: the things, or thing, you just cannot put words to but you know is out there and you will “know it when you see it or feel it”. Unfortunately, well, the intangible also tends to be elusive.

It is also very very difficult to clearly define or put words to it <hence many people choose to focus on some specific milestone or objective>. I think I would suggest the intangible is elusive because the world is indifferent to our desires. What do I mean? It is relatively uninterested in offering the intangible in tangible form. The world simply tends to fork over tangible crap to us and it is up to us to peel it all back and bask in the intangible good stuff found within.

But that takes time and is more difficult.

Therefore. We tend to seek tangibles. And more tangibles. And then more tangibles. This means that we are almost destined, despite that in our soul we deeply long for something indefinable, to settle for tangible proof that we are showing some progress.

I do not really care what the proof is … just that we settle for it.

What Is Elusive? The definition of “elusive” is:

elusive: evasive, slippery, difficult to find, catch or achieve

Speaking of desiring proof – that is why we often create deadlines. Deadlines are powerful things as we face our longing for the indefinite <and the definite>. More often than not we use the deadline to insure we do not waste too much time on something we are not sure can be easily defined. But think about what a deadline really is.

Today the term is now used, mostly, to refer to “the time by which something must be completed.” In the historical sense a deadline refers to the boundary around a prison which, if prisoners crossed it, they’d be shot by the guards. Wow. Okay. So while deadlines are everywhere in the business world we no longer get shot it does seem like we just get shit when we cross a deadline.

Now. Psychologists have done a boatload of research on the effect of deadlines on people. Invariably the majority of people actually improve performance as a deadline nears. They explain this by something called “the Yerkes-Dodson law.” This law suggests performance increases as arousal <excitement, stress, tension, nervousness> increases. Well. At least up to a point from which performance declines as the person, and senses, are overwhelmed.

Basically this suggests we become more aware of consequences of failing to complete what we want to do as time slips away and act upon that awareness <with some focus because the consequences of not meeting the deadline while may not include being shot certainly includes a load of shit>.

In addition. Deadlines tend to eliminate procrastination mostly because we dislike the unpleasant feeling of consequences of not meeting a deadline. Stick with me because this all has to do with our longing for something indefinite.

Ok. Now comes the next horrible thing that happens as we pursue what we truly long for. We have a deadline in our heads and we encounter something called the planning fallacy. We suck, extraordinarily so, at estimating how much time to allocate for things because our brains, in general, are quite overly optimistic with regard to our own capabilities. Therefore we underestimate time. In addition we do this because our brains have a nasty habit of looking back on past poor time allocation and failed deadlines and blame external causes <and yet the next time the thought will be that this time we will be unencumbered therefore meet our deadline successfully>.

All of this circles back to that ‘arousal’ consequence, which we hate, as it rears its ugly head one more time as our optimistic assumptions crash into the actual reality of the situation. I bring it back to ‘arousal’ because all that painful consequence stuff occursWHEN YOU ARE PURSUING A TANGIBLE GOAL.

The waters get even murkier if you are setting some deadline on how much time you want to spend on pursuing this elusive indefinite thing. But. We are truly optimistic folk. Well. At least some of us are. What one person thinks of as elusive and indefinite another sees hope and opportunity. And depending on where you are in Life your feeling can change. The one consistent steady thing is that at all times there is a longing for something more, some longing for something so indefinite as to be undefinable.

So what can we do? We have to take responsibility for our lives and choices and this indefinite thing. We cannot subvert the longing and suffocate it with the tangible.

To be clear <part 1>. The longing should not dictate our lives and behavior, but it also should not play a role in our lives and actions.

To be clear <part 2>. That isn’t easy. Life can throw a bunch of curve balls and … well … some high hard fastballs. The biggest fastball Life throws at you is what I call “Life comparison shopping.” You shop your life against other lives.

In the good ole days it was called “keeping up with the Joneses” <using one’s neighbors as a standard of comparison for the consumption of material goods>. This sounds silly, but we are human, and it is hard not to notice when your neighbor buys something. But they are not the only standard of comparison. Television shows, magazines, websites, and pretty much anywhere you consume information inundates us with stories about what other people have, wear and do.

Yes. While we know we shouldn’t care mostly because, while we may not articulate it this way, we know conspicuous consumption ubiquitous.

Tangible proof is, well, tangible proof.

The tendency to compare yourself to to other people is fundamental and is going to occur whether or not we intend it. And, yes, in some cases, social comparison is useful. In the absence of objective standards of success, social comparison helps us to evaluate and improve ourselves. And yet, at the same time, sometimes social comparison suggests you are inferior in some aspect <wealth, intelligence, appearance, etc.> which can create some feelings of envy or ‘lesser than.’ Okay. This is where the tangible proof path absolutely frickin’ kills us on this pursuit of something undefinable.

“Lesser than” feelings erode the belief you can ever attain what you long for <I mean your head says “c’mon … if you cannot even be good enough to do that how can you be good enough to attain something you cannot even define .. all you can do is just discuss as something you ‘long for’?”>.

Then we remain on the middle path too long. We start missing out on the dreams. We shelve the longing and inevitably that which is undefinable remains undefined and that which we long for simply becomes an immature pursuit for only those who are dreamers. You justify this decision, and personal behavior, as you walk the middle path by always thinking that eventually you will get around to pursuing this longing … and eventually reach this undefinable thing that will makes you happy.

And then time is gone. And the longing, which is easily dismissed as “shit, I couldn’t even define it anyway”, is still there but the opportunity is gone.

Look. Pursuing something so indefinite as to be indefinable is tough. It is not for the faint of heart. To do so you need to accept that while some results are very tangible others are less so. The secret is to get your head straight from the outset on how ‘performance’ is to be measured then build in the means for measuring activity. I say that because I think the measurement is much more important than setting a deadline.

I mean, well, how can you set a deadline on something you cannot even define? <someone smarter than I would have to figure that out>.

In the end I use this quote:

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“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.”

Jimmy Reid

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Part of being a human being is this inherent longing for “something.” Maybe it is captured in that one word: saudade.

“all things born of the soul that can only be felt.”

I am not suggesting we shouldn’t do the day to day stuff that needs to be done nor am I suggesting that deadlines aren’t quite useful for some day to day shit, but I am suggesting that stuff shouldn’t be done at the sacrifice of our longing for “all things born of the soul that can only be felt.”

“The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same.We are all one people. But we live as if divided.”

—-

The Last Airbender

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So.

It seems like I have been talking with a lot of businesses about differentiation & distinctness. Inevitably the conversation turns to ‘brands, branding & being different.” Three painful B’s. And once that happens inevitably the conversations turns to well known brands (Apple, Amazon, Coke) and viewing all those B’s as a reflection of who & what they are.

There may be some value in that conversation but, here is the deal, unless you have worked only at “glamour brand” companies (think Nike, Coke, McDonalds, etc) you have spent an entire career making your unglamorous brand/company/service not look like a commodity (because pretty much all non-glamour brands all get thrown into some confused perception/awareness cluster).

Oh. By the way.

Even ‘glamour’ brands struggle with differentiation (or not dropping into a functional commodity status) in the b2b market (see Kodak, IBM, etc. as prime examples).

So. Unless you have worked on a glamour brand where people line up to show your logo somewhere on their body you have had to become an expert in the decommoditization business.

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decommoditization:

Meaningful differentiation is difficult. It is more than features & benefits and it is absolutely more than sheer ‘puffery’ <the claim that we are unique and everyone will beat a path to our door>.

This is truly the challenge of what a really smart guy named Hugh McLeod calls ‘decommoditization.’ Most businesses simply begin from the wrong place. They either seek ‘white space’ in the competitive environment or they believe they are different and set out to tell the world about it.

That is good old school ideology.

But it is bad because it is old thinking.

In today’s more cynical world the mind’s perception map assumes everyone is equal until proven otherwise.

Every day a business is decommoditizing itself or it is slipping down the slippery slope to commodity.

Unless your business is lean hogs, rough rice, natural gas or soybeans <all commodity futures you can invest in> you better have your head focused on decommoditizing.

Bruce McTague

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I know I have on my resume (somewhere) something like “an ability to differentiate in commodity like categories.”

Well. Okay. That said. In today’s internet world and an endless depth of available information at everyone’s fingertips, where everyone is someone’s competition for expectations, almost everyone is in a commodity like category.

On a separate note. Other than a happy few this also summarizes almost the entire b2b category. Everyone fighting themselves out of the ‘lowest cost provider’ status into ‘great value’ (which by the way is ‘brand’) status.

It doesn’t sound glamorous, but I haven’t been in the branding business or the marketing business or whatever strategy business someone wants to call it. I have been in the decommoditization business. In fact. Anyone who says something like that in an interview? Hire them. And hire them now.

Anyway.

My view is in today’s world the moment you stop and rest on the thought you are a ‘brand’ and have added value in someone’s mind (b2b or consumer) you are screwed. Every minute you do nothing you slip backwards toward commodity.

Hugh MacLeod did the cartoon to the right and I laughed when I first saw it because, while I don’t know him personally, he used almost the exact same words I/we used in a new business presentation to a state tourism business in the late 90’s (and then used over and over again with retail and commodity-like businesses).

It’s not just advertising. It’s relevant to all business.

If you own a business or selling anything to anyone, life isn’t top down (brand to product). Life is down to up – product to brand (constantly seeking to insure your head is above the commodity water).

Does that sound defensive? God. I hope not. It’s just smart. It doesn’t mean you aren’t on the offensive and building value and thinking long term, it simply means you have a practical objective – I don’t want to be a damn commodity.

Anyway.

Meaningful differentiation is hard, REALLY hard. I believe businesses would find it easier if they focused less on brand and more on decommoditizing (which inherently is about value creation).